The invention relates to an apparatus for the positioning of people, in particular new-born babies, in a lying position, which includes an elastically deformable mat provided with a filling material which is enclosed by an outer covering.
Such an apparatus is used, for example for the positioning of new-born babies, especially premature babies, in incubators during transport in ambulances or hospital cars. Heretofore, water was used as a filling material, the water being introduced through an opening which could be closed by a stopper in the plastic sheeting out of which the outer cover is made.
Such an apparatus has a number of disadvantages. The outer cover has a low elasticity. Because of the incompressibility of the water and the low elasticity of the outer cover, the mat becomes a relatively hard support which transmits shocks of the vehicle caused by the transport almost undampened to the head and the body of the new-born baby, whereby there results a considerable risk of injury to the new-born baby. This is further aggravated in that the mat requires a surrounding free space, so that if the mat is pressed in at one location, it can correspondingly bulge out at another location. If there is no free space, as in an incubator, because the mat is bordered on several sides by fixed walls, then the mat in the incubator becomes even harder than it inherently would be due to the low plasticity of the outer cover. However, this known apparatus also has the disadvantage that it provides little support for the new-born baby against displacement on the mat caused by external accelerative forces, such as for example braking forces, and provides no protection against hitting the head against the walls of the incubator due to such displacement. Especially for new-born babies, there exists a considerable danger of head injury in case of coming into contact with hard objects. Furthermore, there is the disadvantage that the mat has a relatively high heat-conductive capability, so that after a relatively short period of the new-born baby's being on the mat, there is the danger of causing a subnormal body temperature. Not lastly, there is also the disadvantage that leakages in the outer cover or at the filling opening can occur, which leads to inoperativeness of the apparatus. Furthermore, if the water leaks out, the health of the new-born baby and/or the operativeness of the incubator can be impaired.